Underneath the Underneath
by R.C. McLachlan
Summary: History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days..." Dakin/Irwin


The air is clean, and yet heavy with the tease of a lighter atmosphere should one be inclined to venture up the cliff path walk. The small ache in his leg reminds him that he will not be appreciating the abbey grounds layout for a long time. He sighs, an appallingly soft gust of resignation, and seats himself upon a stone that had once been a part of a great wall.

He has no idea why he'd even opened the letter, the one sent to BBC2, care of Tom Irwin, the envelope white and innocuous, his name tattooed into it by a black pen that appeared to have been running out of ink. He'd recognized the handwriting the moment the girl, some secretary to some manager, had handed it to him with a smile and said she loved his program and could he sign an autograph for her, for her mother, Bekka with two K's?

Even after four years, his immunity is still weak. Hector's inoculation had done nothing, although the man had been right about the pain.

_I should have gone to Bristol._

_Roche Abbey, Sunday, 1:00pm._

_No euphemisms._

He checks his watch, a gift from the station after the success of the program's premier, and studiously ignores how his hand is shaking. It is five past one.

Hector was right. He really is a fool, sitting at Roche Abbey after four years and one eye-opening encounter in a classroom. What kind of teacher, what kind of man, would stand silent as a complacent little know-it-all spewed out eloquent, erotic filth, half-veiled by poetry while simultaneously taking wrecking balls to his carefully-crafted armor? Poland knew something was up, yes, but did not choose to act.

Divide and conquer.

He smiles, and hates himself for allowing himself to be so obviously seduced.

"There you are."

The last four years have changed Stuart Dakin, and most assuredly for the better. He no longer sports that ridiculous hairstyle, the one Irwin used to find so amusingly attractive, with the way it would shine in the light from all the gel. Oxford has definitely left its mark. Dakin carries himself a little taller, a little less cheekily, a man that's long left the vestiges of boyhood behind, ready to take on and tackle the world. There is nothing in him of Sheffield, of Cutler's. Irwin barely recognizes him.

"I wasn't sure you'd come," Dakin continues, long legs carrying him across the impossibly green grass to where Irwin sits.

"Here I am," says Irwin softly. Dakin smiles, and there's nothing overtly mocking in it, but Irwin can't help but feel like he's being made fun of. "And you, an Oxford graduate. You look well."

The smile broadens to an amused grin. "You look as if you're about to be sick. You're never this nervous, even when you've got thousands of people watching your program. I've seen you. You can be totally at ease when you want to be."

His heart does not race at the thought of Dakin watching his program. It doesn't. "I'm fine. Just surprised that you felt the need to come here when a simple phone call would have done."

Dakin says nothing in response to Irwin's brushing off whatever they had as something a phone call would have satisfied, just moves to sit down on Irwin's stone, crowding him, stretching out all over Irwin's space. Close. Far too close and still far too much of a temptation. Long fingers take out a pack of cigarettes and tap two out. Dakin lights them both and holds one of them out.

"Consider it the Treaty of Trianon."

Irwin chuckles, takes the offering, and draws deeply on it, hoping the nicotine will calm his nerves. "Are you trying to dismantle a major European power?"

Dakin stares at him from the corner of his eye and Irwin shivers. "I'm trying to dismantle _something_."

They sit in wordless silence for a long moment, puffing at their cigarettes and gazing out at the land beyond the ruins. There is so much history here, between them, where the abbey once stood. Lives and events and love and death.

"I hated Oxford," Dakin says at long last, and Irwin looks at the white cylinder between his fingers, thinking of hiding in a storage shed from the Headmaster, pressed momentarily up against Dakin's uniform, the scent of cigarette smoke and cologne so strong that he could taste it on his tongue. So much history.

"Did you."

Dakin exhales a plume of smoke that dances away from them, dispersing into nothing, quietly polluting the air. "All of it. The pretension, the expectations, the snobbery. I hated it all so much that there were days when I was _this close_ to just dropping everything and leaving. And I'd never once thought I'd hate it, not even in the subjunctive."

Irwin nods without really understanding. It had been his dream to get into Oxford, to be able to tell his family, friends, and lovers that he was an Oxford graduate. To have that title, that extra honor. Instead, he had gone to Bristol and had been happy. He would have rather gone to Oxford and been miserable.

"The worst of it is that I worked so hard to get in," Dakin goes on, tilting his head back to catch the sun. Irwin's breath catches in his throat at the picture he makes. "Weeks and weeks of endless words, only to have you tear them apart, compound sentence by elliptical clause by fucking gerund."

"It made you a better writer, a better historian."

Dakin snorts. "It didn't."

"I read your essays back at Cutler," Irwin protests. "Toward the end, they were really good. Fascinating, even. Thought-provoking."

"All lies. Good lies, but lies. That wasn't me trying to be different than all the other Oxbridge candidates, that was me trying to get your attention. And it'd worked. Barring accidents, it would have more than worked."

Irwin closes his eyes and tosses the cigarette away, the smell too acrid. "Fuck you."

"No, fuck you. _Sir_. "

He can't do this. He can't be back in that room, trapped against the window, staring at the shadows the light had cast on Dakin's cheeks, white-washing him into a marble masterpiece that begged for his touch.

Painfully, Irwin stands and puts some distance between them. A blockade. "Enough. Enough."

_"History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days," _Dakin sighs, looking around. "I've seen pictures of Roche Abbey when it was whole. It was nice, but the ruins… I find the ruins much more beautiful."

And there they are, among the ruins.

Irwin looks out at the looming stones. "The used to be."

"So what if they're the used to be? They're still here. Where everything else has left, or gone, or been redone, these are still here." Dakin stands and stretches. "You do realize we've accomplished nothing."

"What did you think would happen?" Irwin can't help but ask, inflecting polite diffidence into his tone. "That we would trade declarations of love among the beautiful ruins of Roche Abbey? Romantic. Hopeless romantic. The lot of you were."

Dakin looks at him, amusement clear in his eyes, the ever-present sneer from before missing from his face. Maybe it's underneath the calm veneer he's showing. "Were we? Am I? Where does that leave you? Are you telling me you're not a romantic when it comes to history and its impact on the world?" Dakin pauses. "Is your leg getting tired?"

Irwin struggles to piece together the conversation, non-sequitur and all. He had been used to that, once, back at Cutler's when Dakin had been so determined to catch him off-guard, jumping from topic to topic in the blink of an eye. Going from 'I went to your school' to 'your sucking me off' in a matter of seconds. Dakin is like a synapse, a burst of electricity, the smallest thing that keeps it all going. Underneath the calm is the sneer, and underneath that is everything else.

"We could sit back down, if you want," Dakin offers, amusement plain in his voice. Irwin is so glad he's entertaining, at least. It takes away a bit from the fact that he's a right fool.

"Is that a euphemism, as well?" Irwin asks, ignoring the growing ache in his calf, a pain very much like what his mother calls Sciatica. "Sitting down, going for a drink -- just what is it that you want from me?"

Dakin stares at him for an endless moment, a small eternity that gives birth to a multitude of histories, the wills and will-bes, then sighs, narrowing his eyes in frustration. "You hide behind your show, which turned out to be exactly as Totty'd said it would, you big sell-out, you hide behind a camera lens, and your half-truths, and your fucking propriety, and I want to see whatever's beneath them. And then I want to see underneath that. I want to see underneath the underneath."

Stunned, Irwin opens his mouth, but the words aren't there. They haven't been written yet.

"And don't say it'll pass, it's a phase, the literature said so. That's a load of balls. I want to know. And I find that I'm one of those people who can't distance themselves from the things they want to know."

Dakin's suddenly in front of him, so close they share the same breath. Inhale, exhale. Strong hands, fingers that have calluses on them from holding hundreds of pens too tightly, lift and cup Irwin's face, and Irwin thinks that this is what insanity must feel like.

"Dakin…"

"I remember learning about the Americans and their war with the natives. There's a double-standard in that history," Dakin murmurs, but his voice rattles Irwin's insides around, as if he were holding thunder in his grasp.

"There always is," Irwin whispers, eyes sliding shut as his lips brush against warm flesh accidentally. Dakin is going to shake him apart, until there is nothing left but ruin among the ruins.

"Even before you showed up, we always took different sides. Used to root for the Indians, we did. Not to pass any exam, mind you, but we didn't think it was fair that when the cavalry won it was a great victory, and when the Indians won it was a massacre." Dakin smiles and Irwin can feel it. "Why is it that a teacher is a paedophile if he wants a student, but a student asking a teacher out for a drink, or for a walk through Roche Abbey, is merely idol-worship gone awry, or a game? Why the double-standard, _sir_?"

Inhale, exhale. Irwin draws a shuddering breath in, Dakin's own mingling with it. Irwin can taste mint toothpaste and something uniquely Dakin.

"I'm not your teacher anymore."

A slow grin breaks over Dakin's face like the sun. "Maybe we don't have such a long way to go, after all."

Irwin shakes his head and steps back. Disappointment flashes across Dakin's face. "No."

"Why not?" Dakin asks in the next breath, barely allowing Irwin to finish speaking. He'd done that in the classroom that day, Irwin thinks. Trying to cut him off, so impatient to knock him down. "We're not in class, you're not my teacher, and I'm not your student --"

"You were," Irwin mutters, swallowing his pride and hunkering down to sit in the grass. Dakin slips down easily beside him.

"I was," is the agreement, and Dakin leans back until he falls against the ground, head pillowed on his hands, staring up at the sky. "Imperfect tense. Why are you so focused on the past?"

Irwin smiles wryly and looks up, wondering what is so interesting. All he sees is endless blue. An old lover from college once said he had eyes that went on for days, if only he wouldn't hide behind his glasses. "I'm a historian. It's what I do."

Dakin laughs. "Never look to the future, then? _This is the time / this is the place / so we look to the future…"_

"I don't know that," Irwin says, frowning. Dakin shrugs and smiles, closing his eyes.

"Don't own a radio? It's Genesis. Playing everywhere these days."

Silence descends, and Irwin feels the nervousness from before slipping away, the sun's warmth leeching it out of him. With a sigh, he carefully lowers himself to lie back next to Dakin.

This is what was missing before. Even with the rules of the school, with Dakin a student and therefore untouchable, there had never been this quiet easiness between them. It's comfortable. It's lulling, and everything he's dreamed of.

It's the September Campaign.

A hand moves with the speed of a striking snake to clamp around his arm. Irwin starts in surprise, but Dakin just gives him a little shake and releases him.

"Stop being so fucking careful."

"What is this, Dakin?" Irwin murmurs.

"It's the Potsdam Conference. It's the Warsaw Uprising. It's Hitler's suicide. It's whatever you want it to be." Dakin rolls onto his side and props his chin up with a hand. In the sun, he looks like the Greeks' Apollo, or Byron's Don Juan, every literary hero that touched history. Beautiful men have always done note-worthy things. Dakin will be more than some tax lawyer. He will be great. "And my name's Stuart. Unless you call all your clamoring suitors by their last names."

It startles a laugh out of Irwin, bubbling up from deep inside, leaving him sleepy and amused. "Oh, yes. My many, many admirers."

"I thought that's how it must be." Deft fingers, calluses and all, are on his face, plucking his glasses from his nose and placing them gently on the grass. Stuart smiles, and Japan surrenders and the war ends. "There you are."

Slowly, Tom smiles back and reaches out of the past, forward. "Here I am."


End file.
